the battle of imphal

The Battle of Imphal took place in the region around the city of Imphal, the capital of the state of Manipur in North-East India from March until July 1944. Japanese armies attempted to destroy the Allied forces at Imphal and invade India, but were driven back into Burma with heavy losses. Together with the simultaneous Battle of Kohima on the road by which the encircled Allied forces at Imphal were relieved, the battle was the turning point of the Burma Campaign, part of the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II.

Air Operations at Imphal By mid-1944, the Allied air forces enjoyed undisputed air supremacy over Burma. The last major effort by the Japanese Army Air Force had been over the Arakan in February and March, when they had suffered severe losses. During the Imphal and Kohima battles, they were able to make barely half a dozen significant raids. IV Corps enjoyed close air support from fighter-bombers and dive bombers. Allied fighter bombers and medium bombers shot up and bombed enemy concentrations, supply dumps, transport, roads and bridges all the way to the Chindwin river. The monsoon in no way diminished their activity. The Third Tactical Air Force (TAF) increased their sortie rate to 24,000 sorties during the worst four months of the monsoon, nearly six times the figure of the previous year’s record. However, the most important contribution to the Allied victory was made by both British and American transport aircraft. The Allies could fly men, equipment and supplies into the airstrips at Imphal (and Palel also, until the onset of the monsoon rains) so although cut off by land, the town was not without a lifeline. Allied aircraft could also parachute ammunition, rations and even drinking water to surrounded units. Several thousand mules, many shipped from the Argentine, were used to carry food ammunition, and light guns to outlying outposts, for example 17th Indian Division up the Bishenpur trail. During the siege animal fodder also had to be flown in. At the start of the battle, South East Asia Command had 76 transport aircraft (mainly C-47 Skytrain) available, but many others were dedicated to supplying the Nationalist Chinese under Chiang Kai-Shek, or to establishing USAAF bomber bases in China, via "the hump". Not even Lord Mountbatten, the Commander-in-Chief, had the authority to commandeer any of these aircraft, but at the crisis of the battle in the middle of March he nevertheless did so, acquiring 20 C-46 Commando. He was supported by American officers at SEAC and the American China-Burma-India Theater headquarters.[9] By the end of the battle the Allied air forces had flown 19,000 tons of supplies and 12,000 men into Kohima and Imphal, and flown out 13,000 casualties and 43,000 non-combatants. War Cemetry After the war, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission set up cemetries in Imphal and Kohima to commemorate the memories of the British and the Indian soldiers who died during the Second World War.[10] Stalemate From the beginning of April, the Japanese attacked the Imphal plain from several directions: • 33rd Division attacked from the south at Bishenpur, where they cut a secondary track from Silchar into the plain. Yanagida, its commander, was already pessimistic and depressed by the failure to trap the Indian 17th Division. He had also been rattled by a garbled radio message which suggested that one of his regiments had been destroyed at Milestone 109. He therefore advanced cautiously. By doing so, he may have lost a chance to gain success while the Indian 17th Infantry Division was resting after its retreat and Bishenpur was held only by Indian 32 Brigade (from 20th Division). Mutaguchi removed him from command. • Yamamoto Force attacked the Shenam Saddle on the main road from Tamu into Imphal. The Shenam Saddle was ideal defensive terrain. Despite using heavy artillery and tanks, Yamamoto could not break through Indian 20th Division's well-sited defences. The INA's Gandhi Regiment or 2nd Guerrilla Regiment, of two battalions led by Inayat Kiyani, later joined this attack and suffered heavy casualties in the assault on Palel airfield. • 15th Division encircled Imphal from the north. Its 60 Regiment captured a British supply dump at Kangpokpi (also known as "Mission" from a church there) on the main Imphal-Dimapur road, but once again, the depot had already been emptied of food and ammunition. 51 Regiment seized the vital Nunshigum Ridge, which overlooked the main airstrip at Imphal. This was a major threat to IV Corps, and on April 13 the Indian 5th Division counter-attacked, supported by massed artillery and the M3 Lee tanks of the 3rd Carabiniers. The Japanese regiment had no anti-tank weapons, and their troops were driven from the ridge with heavy casualties. The situation At the start of 1944, the war was going against the Japanese on several fronts. They were being driven back in the central and south west Pacific. In south east Asia, they had held their lines over the preceding year, but the Allies were preparing several offensives from India and Yunnan into Burma. In particular, the town of Imphal in Manipur on the frontier with Burma was built up to be a substantial logistic base, with airfields, encampments and supply dumps. Imphal was held by the Indian IV Corps, commanded by Lieutenant-General Geoffrey Scoones. The corps was in turn part of the British Fourteenth Army under Lieutenant General William Slim. Because the Allies were planning to take the offensive themselves, the corps' units were thrown forward almost to the Chindwin River and widely separated, being vulnerable to being cut off. • Indian 20th Infantry Division occupied Tamu. The division was untried but well-trained. • Indian 17th Infantry Division occupied Tiddim, at the end of a long and precarious line of communication. The division, which had two brigades only, had been intermittently in action since December 1941. • Indian 23rd Infantry Division was in reserve in Imphal. It had served on the Imphal front for two years and was severely understrength as a result of endemic diseases such as malaria and typhus. • Indian 50th Parachute Brigade was north of Imphal, conducting advanced jungle training. • 254th Indian Tank Brigade was stationed in and around Imphal. Japanese plan Main article: Operation U-Go Late in 1943, the Japanese command in Burma had been reorganised. A new headquarters, Burma Area Army, was created under Lieutenant-General Masakasu Kawabe. One of its subordinate formations, responsible for the central part of the front facing Imphal and Assam, was Fifteenth Army, whose new commander was Lieutenant-General Renya Mutaguchi. From the moment he took command, Mutaguchi forcefully advocated an invasion of India. His motives for doing so appear to be complex. He had played a major part in several Japanese victories, ever since the Marco Polo Bridge incident in 1937 and believed it was his destiny to win the decisive battle of the war for Japan. He may also have been goaded by the first Chindit expedition, a raid behind Japanese lines launched by the British under Orde Wingate early in 1943. The Allies had widely publicised the successful aspects of Wingate's expedition while concealing their losses to disease and exhaustion, possibly misleading Mutaguchi and some of his staff as to the difficulties they would later face. Mutaguchi planned to exploit the capture of Imphal by advancing to the Brahmaputra River valley, thereby cutting the Allied supply lines to their front in northern Burma, and to the airfields supplying the Nationalist Chinese under Chiang Kai-shek over "The Hump". Although the staff at Burma Area Army HQ and at Southern Expeditionary Army Group HQ had reservations over the scale of his proposed operation, they were eventually induced to support it when War Minister Hideki Tojo and Imperial Army HQ favoured attacking India. Mutaguchi intended to cut off and destroy the Allied units in their forward positions and then capture Imphal. His plan was name U-Go, or Operation C. In detail:

 

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